Testimonials are a must have on just about any web site – what they do is increase the sense of trust and act as social proof:  if lots of people say something is great, then it must be great (is how people think).

The best testimonials are those that say something that resonates with the reader.

If the reader identifies strongly with what is being said, or it addresses his particular concerns, then the chances of a sale go up.

I’ve just read a testimonial that I love.

I love it for a number of reasons:

• It stands out as a very different testimonial
• It is full of passion and vigour about the product mentioned
• It’s just plain cool

Holy Shit – Here It Is!

“Holy shit!

Tasmania is planet awesome sauce.  It’s a custom made moto wonderland.

Its gorgeousness and gorgeosity abounds.  Claire and I had the best time.

Campervan for 5 days, Bikes for 2 days, so we did have to move like fugitives.”

It’s from one of our recently completed sites for a motorcycle hire business in Tasmania.

Different Gets Noticed

When you ask for testimonials from your customers, don’t be afraid to ask for an outrageous one.

Outrageous is different.  Different gets noticed.

Cheers

Brendon

We’ve just finished off a great new site for a motorcycle hire business in Tasmania.

It’s the same business I hired my motorbike from when I toured around Tasmania for a couple of weeks a few months back.  Got talking with Ian (the owner) and one thing led to another which led to the new site.

Check out how the old site’s bike display below and then the new bike display under that.

'Old' site bike display example

Not Bragging………..But Here’s Our New Site

New site bike display example

Check out the new motorcycle hire Tasmania business web site here – it’s beautiful!

For those technically minded folks, it’s a customised Thesis site (Wordpress Content Management System).

Design was in-house by Toby.

Cheers

Brendon

You know, it amazes me to see stupid old marketing strategies still being implemented.

You’d assume they work…..or the people doing them are reading books way out of date.

I really dislike the fax strategy I received earlier today.

The old "Personal Message" trick of 1824

What they’ve done is:

1. Pretend they’ve ripped a news article out of a newspaper
2. Implied they know you with the scrawled ‘personal’ message beside it

The theory is you look at the scrawled note and think you must know a “John” so it could be from someone you know, so the thinking is you’ll be:

• more likely to read it
• give the information more credibility than it would otherwise deserve because it could be endorsed by a friend (the “John” guy)

This stupid old marketing technique is older than my great grandfather and seems a bit dodgy to mean.

Do people still fall for this stuff?

Cheers

Brendon

I know that sometimes (okay, okay….often) on this site I look like a complete knob.

At the risk of sounding like a guy who thinks he’s Super Dad, I’m going to relate a story from the Noosa Triathlon that seems so bloody stupid you wouldn’t think a dad would do it.

Noosa Tri Is A Big Tough Race

The Noosa Triathlon is one of the world’s largest multi-sport events.

14 yo Jack finishes 2006 Noosa Tri

The Olympic distance triathlon (1.5 km swim, 40 km bike ride, 10 km run) gets about 5,500 competitors.  That’s a big race by any standards.

Many of these competitors are part of a team and it will come as little surprise to regular readers to know that the mighty Team Sinclair have been competitors in this race for the past 4 years.

Last year before the Noosa Triathlon I hadn’t done any swimming for about a year.  Not 1 swim.

But come that Triathlon day in 2008 I was jumping in and swimming the 1.5 kms in a very slow 35 minutes.  My son Jack took over for the bike, then the beautiful Laura Sinclair (my daughter) finished off with the 10 km run.

Massive Training Effort ;o)

Anyway, this year I’d done a ton of training before the race:  I swam on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before the race on Sunday ;o)

Which means that this year’s Team Sinclair – me and my 15 yo son Harry – were expecting a slightly better showing than last year.

Jack & Laura - 2/3 of Team Sinclair - 2007

(My usual team-mates of Jack and Laura – that’s them above in 2007 – had to pull out due to an Air Force Cadets camp and an injury.)

So on Sunday I jumped into the waters of Noosa expecting to do anywhere between 32-35 minutes.

Much to my surprise I swam a (still slow) 30 minutes for the 1.5 km swim – I was very happy with that as I headed up the ramp leading out of the water and to the Transition area where Harry sat waiting for me to arrive so he could start the 40 km bike ride.

“I’m Like A Fish!”

As I headed to him I (naturally enough!) said:

“30 minutes Haz……I’m like a fish!  We’re killing it!”

We high-fived each other, hugged and he grabbed the timing chip off my ankle.

“Have a good ride, mate. Love ya,” I said as he trotted off to mount his bike for the ride leg.

I dried myself and started dressing in shorts and a t-shirt.

Swimmers were coming in constantly to the team area to meet their cyclists for the handover of the timing chip. Once the timing chip was passed on the cyclist would race out.

When the cyclist finishes his leg he hands over the chip to the team’s runner who finishes off the race.

The Guy Opposite Waited For His Swimmer

As I was dressing, a guy opposite me stood waiting for his swimmer.

He was a middle aged guy and his swimmer, when she arrived a minute or 2 later, was his daughter – a beautiful young girl who must have been all of 15 years old.

She’d swum 1.5 km in very tough conditions – the Noosa Tri swim is one tough swim.

There are so many swimmers it’s like being in a washing machine – you can get battered and bashed from all sides.

Anyway, this guy’s daughter runs into transition after her swim and races up proudly to her dad.

She’d finished her bit as part of the Team!

The first, and only, thing the dad says to her is “Where’s the timing chip?”

The Forgotten Timing Chip

The girl has a “D’oh” moment and says “Aaaaaargh.  I forgot to put it on.  Mum has it.”

The dad screeches “Where’s mum?” and storms off in the direction of his wife.

She throws him the timing chip, he grumbles as he puts it on, stands up, grabs his bike and runs out of the Team transition area.

He doesn’t say another word to his daughter.

That same lovely young daughter – have I mentioned she’d just swam a bloody hard and exhausting 1.5 kilometres – stood watching her dad’s back, turned and walked to where her mum was standing.

Here’s The Thing You Jerk

Doing a triathlon with your kids and wife isn’t about the triathlon.

It’s not about swimming, or biking, or running.

It’s not about racing.

It’s not about how fast you go.

Or how slow you go.

What The Family Team Is Actually About

It’s about your family.

It’s about spending time with them and showing them a path.

A path of effort and application, perseverance and sacrifice.

It’s about working together to see what you can do.

It’s an opportunity to connect.

An opportunity to do something together.

An opportunity to acknowledge what a wonderful daughter you have who, at her tender years, did an amazing job to work up the courage to swim 1.5 kms being bashed from pillar to post to be part of your team.

She did that so she could share something wonderful with you.

To be more connected to you.

And all you could do was rip your girl to shreds with your screeching, your stomping and your anger.

I don’t think I’ve ever dropped the F-Bomb on this site before, but that’s about to end:

Who fucking cares about the fucking timing chip, you idiot??!

Here’s what you’re supposed to do as a dad:

When your daughter says “Aaaaaargh.  I forgot to put the timing chip on.  Mum has it,” you grab her and hug her.

Then you laugh – remember it’s just a timing chip.

Then you say “What a fantastic swim!  You are one amazing kid.  Wow!”

Then you kiss you’re beautiful girl.

Then you say “Who cares about the timing chip.  I’d better go.  Love you – you’re fantastic.”

But you didn’t.

Hope you crashed your bike, you dickhead.

Cheers

Brendon

Till last week I’d never heard of glider chairs – turns out they’re a modern day rocking chair, but all plush and comfortable.

Something like a glider chair makes you think about your web site strategies when you look at what people search for.

Essentially you have to be up with the jargon of your market.  After all, no good marketing glider chairs if those people searching for them are searching for “rocking chairs”.

Even though the glider chairs are a fair bit different – the  frame consists of a seat attached to the base by means of a double-rocker 4 bar linkage – to a rocking chair, you need to do what your market wants.

Be Visible To Your Market

So if they’re searching for “rocking chairs” you have to be sure your glider chairs are visible to that market.

Don’t stand firmly behind your product name if people call it something else – that’s what results in zero sales and people missing out on your great chair.

Cheers

Brendon

My family and I have been going up to Noosa and doing the Noosa Triathlon each year for the past 4 years – we enter 1, sometimes 2 teams.

Sometimes we rope a friend in to do a swim leg so we can have 2 teams, other times, like this year, only my son and I were fit and available.

I did the 1.5 km swim and my 15 yo son Harry completed the 40km cycle and 10km run.

Starting a family tradition, like going up to Noosa each year to do the race is a great tradition to have.

Getting outside, enjoying fitness and traveling about sure beats watching TV any old day.

Cheers

Brendon

A client’s web site exceeded it’s bandwidth limit at midnight.

(We don’t host the site or have any thing to do with the host.)

I’ve been trying all day, along with our client, to get hold of either his old web master or the web host with zero luck.

Tons of calls, emails and messages have gone unanswered.

The client is losing sales fast – and each sale can be worth in excess of $1,000.

The Ironic Blurb On The Host’s About Us Page

From the host’s web page we found this:

“After completing university, I was operating a web design business and found that a major part of my reputation relied upon “faceless” international suppliers for hosting, emails & domains.
What would I do if they disappeared??”

Well, you’d piss around all day trying to contact the idiot who’s costing you hundreds, if not, thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

That’s what you’d be doing!

Cheers

Brendon

My local florist is dumb.

Really dumb.

They’re really dumb because they leave a ton of money on the table.

They should be making double what they make now.

They’re so stupid it frustrates the hell out of me.

Exhibit # 1:

I ring up and buy my wife flowers on her birthday.

They say thanks, take the order, get my credit card details and send the flowers.

Job done (according to them).

Exhibit # 2:

I ring up and buy my daughter flowers on her birthday.

They say thanks, take the order, get my credit card details and send the flowers.

Job done (according to them).

Exhibit # 3:

I ring up and buy my mum flowers on her birthday.

They say thanks, take the order, get my credit card details and send the flowers.

Job done (according to them).

Change Your Thinking Or You Don’t Deserve To Be In Business

I’ve ordered these flowers above from a heap of different florists over the years.

All of them are, to be frank, incompetent in business and don’t deserve to be in business.

1 Simple Thing They Must Have

The 1 very simple thing these florists must have is a contact relationship database (I use and love ACT!).

Every customer should be in their database.

1 Simple Thing They Must Do

The 1 very simple thing they must do is get all the info they can from their customer – here’s an example:

“Okay, is this your wife Brendon?  It’s her birthday today?  Terrific, I’m sure she’ll love her flowers.  We’ll do a great job and send them off.”

Easy.

Into that ACT! database goes my wife’s name in my record, along with a reminder to call me 2 days before her birthday every year with this:

“Hi Brendon.  It’s coming up to Mel’s birthday in a couple of days – you sent a lovely bunch of red roses last year.

We have some beautiful pink roses in at the moment and they’re spectacular.  Would you like to surprise your wife again this year?”

$190 Bit Of Software To Explode Your Business

A $190 bit of software and a phone.

That’s enough to double your florist business in a matter of months.

Can you apply this very same strategy to your business?

Cheers

Brendon